Tag Archives: conference

On November 18, 2016 three of our staff members flew to Milwaukee to present at the Growing Power Conference hosted by Will Allen. The theme of the conference was “Let’s Scale It Up! Growing Food and Farmers: Best Practices in Growing, Distribution and Community Building.” This post shares some their reflections.Crystal Jones, Cha’Shay Woldridge and Melissa Tang (here with Will Allen) presented CommunityGrows’ programs & model on scaling up through education. For a small community-based nonprofit like ours, scaling may look different but still has a large impact in building our future leaders in the community. Through educating youth we are able to build a connection with growing food, eating healthy food, cooking food and creating a ripple effect throughout the health of the community. Our model creates trust, rapport and consistency with youth as our programs teach youth multiple times a year. We also prioritize and are intentional around hiring a diverse staff, especially from the community. Cha’Shay spoke about her experience in the BEETS program and why she decided to come back as a staff member. We wrapped up our presentation with a cooking demo of hummus pinwheels! We also got to share the day with our former CommunityGrows Garden Educator, Serena Padilla, who now lives near Milwaukee and joined us at the conference.When recollecting about her experience at Growing Power, Crystal Jones, our Seed-to-Mouth Cooking Coordinator, felt without a doubt, that this conference was the most multicultural conference she’d ever been to and had the pleasure of being a part of. “Living in a nation where there is often so much that divides one from one’s neighbor, there was something very remarkable seeing people from every walk of life and countless nationalities, come together for the same purpose. That purpose being, the strength building and betterment of our communities, our future, and our world. Listening to speaker after speaker and interacting with conference attendees, I could tell one thing to be true – that these people (myself included), had come here to talk, listen, learn and be inspired – sure. But more than that, I could tell that I was in a room full of doers. People who would walk away from the conference and put into practice many of the tools they gleaned.”“One of the most beneficial bits of information I returned home with, was from the “Political Plate” discussion, wherein governmental resources that aid in environmental work and nutrition education locally and globally were shared. I am excited to see how CommunityGrows might be able to make use of these resources and further the work that we do in San Francisco.”
Everyone at CommunityGrows was excited to share this conference experience with our Garden Assistant & BEET alumna, Cha’Shay Woldridge. This was the first time she would speak at a conference, first time flying, and first time in Milwaukee. She spoke proudly of her role in the community as a Garden Assistant and offered new insights on how to support communities like the Western Addition. One thing Cha’Shay took away from the conference was “that there are people in this world who care about where their food comes from. They care about making the world a better and healthier place. They are giving people a chance to learn and experience all these new things. We have a voice and it’s getting out there that your body and what you put inside of it is an important thing to know about.” Cha’Shay also commented, “I want to learn about aquaculture, composting, food distribution, soil reclamation, horticulture, and sustainability. This conference inspired me to continue teaching and reminded me how important my job is to me and the community.”

CommunityGrows staff Kelly ErnstFriedman, Melissa Tang and Cha’Shay Woldridge presented with Julia Hatton from Rising Sun Energy Center spoke at the ChangeScale August 2015 Convening: Creating a Culture of Equity and Inclusion. They reported on their work with other Bay Area organizations that made up a LEAPS (Leadership and Evaluation to Advance Program Success) cohort, funded for three years by the S.D. Bechtel Jr. Fund. The cohort of seventeen environmental literacy grantees was brought together in 2012 by LEAPS, a group founded by Learning for Action. Participating organizations share commitment to supporting high-school aged youth to develop as leaders and environmental stewards in their communities.
These seventeen LEAPS organizations were engaged in ongoing technical assistance to develop their evaluation capacity since October 2012.
During the first phase of this initiative, organization representatives attended trainings focused on foundational evaluation and learning concepts: theories of change, logic models, evaluation plans, tool development, data analysis techniques, and communicating effectiveness. They also engaged in a range of leadership capacity building activities.
In the phase that followed and with continued support from the S.D. Bechtel, Jr., Foundation, Learning for Action worked with clusters of organizations to develop shared measures around three cross-cutting areas of interest. The cluster study work arose out of an opportunity for the cohort to begin to document its collective story – which was further emerging after Phase I’s work – and the desire to advance organizations’ evaluation capacity through the hands-on, group learning experience this type of project would provide. Organizations worked together to define and form the clusters, collect data, and analyze the emerging stories.Here is a little more about ChangeScale. ChangeScale is working to support and advance the cohesiveness, effectiveness, and prominence of the environmental education field. Funded by the S. D. Bechtel, Jr. and Pisces Foundations, ChangeScale’s mission is to ensure that every generation is inspired with the environmental know-how to create healthy communities and a healthy planet. Formed in 2010 and comprised of Bay Area practitioners, academics, and funders, the group will create a strategic plan and road map to strengthen and build the field of environmental education, while helping to create a unified voice for the field.
Congratulations everyone for a job well done!
Here are some documents from our three years of work with the LEAPS Cohort: